The referenced article is so sad, and demonstrates the complete inability of the US patent system to deal with software. Patenting "Slide to Unlock" is as stupid as the famous "One-Click" patent owned by Amazon. The latter always reminds me of "This is Spinal Tap", when the guitar player is explaining why an amp with knobs going up to 11 is inherently louder than one with knobs that go up to ten: "It's like what you do with two clicks, but it just takes one click - see? Completely different."
I'll admit that I certainly made some money as an expert witness in the Apple vs. Microsoft "look and feel" lawsuit about graphical user interfaces in the 1990s, but it was still stupid. Apple had to lose (which I told their lawyers) since everybody "liberated" all of those concepts from Xerox, but they didn't care. (There were other aspects to the case, but a key was whether Apple could really patent fundamental notions of how graphical applications could interact on a computer display, such as displaying overlapping windows, moving a window over another while something was happening in both, and so on - all at least done at Xerox PARC in the 1970s.) There's a great quote on this subject from Bill Gates, who said something along the lines of the following to Steve Jobs: "Hey, Steve, just because you broke into Xerox's house before I did and took the TV doesn't mean I can't go in later and take the stereo." Sometimes you've gotta love that guy - and I really enjoy his current "Andrew Carnegie" approach to reinventing himself as a nice guy through philanthropy. Hey, maybe I can patent that behavior pattern? (He is doing good, but let's not forget Stacker, DRDOS, and many more.)
And then there's the patent on using an exclusive or (XOR) operation to superimpose and display graphical objects on a screen. Duh! It's not like there are many other fast ways to do that, and it's a fundamental mathematical concept. I think this patent has since been struck down, but not before hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees were paid to some bogon. What's next? "Please, sir, I'd like to use addition in my program." "That will cost you $20000. Next!"
Well, that struck a nerve! I'll be quiet now...
I'll admit that I certainly made some money as an expert witness in the Apple vs. Microsoft "look and feel" lawsuit about graphical user interfaces in the 1990s, but it was still stupid. Apple had to lose (which I told their lawyers) since everybody "liberated" all of those concepts from Xerox, but they didn't care. (There were other aspects to the case, but a key was whether Apple could really patent fundamental notions of how graphical applications could interact on a computer display, such as displaying overlapping windows, moving a window over another while something was happening in both, and so on - all at least done at Xerox PARC in the 1970s.) There's a great quote on this subject from Bill Gates, who said something along the lines of the following to Steve Jobs: "Hey, Steve, just because you broke into Xerox's house before I did and took the TV doesn't mean I can't go in later and take the stereo." Sometimes you've gotta love that guy - and I really enjoy his current "Andrew Carnegie" approach to reinventing himself as a nice guy through philanthropy. Hey, maybe I can patent that behavior pattern? (He is doing good, but let's not forget Stacker, DRDOS, and many more.)
And then there's the patent on using an exclusive or (XOR) operation to superimpose and display graphical objects on a screen. Duh! It's not like there are many other fast ways to do that, and it's a fundamental mathematical concept. I think this patent has since been struck down, but not before hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees were paid to some bogon. What's next? "Please, sir, I'd like to use addition in my program." "That will cost you $20000. Next!"
Well, that struck a nerve! I'll be quiet now...
